I began my research career in the field of post-harvesting of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Specifically, I worked on aspects related to the metabolism of ethylene and polyamines during the post-harvest ripening of climacteric fruits, a subject on which I wrote my doctoral thesis between 1986 and 1991. In September 1991, I joined the University of Alicante as an Interim Lecturer in Plant Physiology, with the introduction for the first time at this University of the Bachelor's Degree in Biology, joining a new area of knowledge that had no infrastructure until then. From then on I maintained the post-harvest line as long as possible, but due to the lack of specific equipment for this line and of a critical mass of teaching staff, in 2000 I started a new line of research related to in vitro culture of plant cells and tissues and cryopreservation, which allowed me to join and participate in the constitution of the current CIBIO Research Institute (Ibero-American Biodiversity Centre) at the University of Alicante, providing biotechnological tools for the maintenance and conservation of plant diversity. I also became part of the research group: Biodiversity and Biotechnology applied to Conservation Biology at the University of Alicante, which is attached to the Institute. The result of all this work was the creation of an in vitro plant tissue culture laboratory, also equipped with the technology to cryopreserve biological material, in which we have been able to develop different protocols for the conservation of plant species of interest mainly in the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia. From 2009, I joined other researchers in the group in a multidisciplinary line of work on plant-insect relationships, with emphasis on the responses of plants, mainly cultivated plants, to herbivore attack, the chemical communication established between them, the production of defences and the identification of natural plant substances of interest in biological and integrated pest control. Currently, my scientific activity is focused on the search for and optimisation of essential oils from aromatic plants as natural insecticides against aphid pests.